for a stop at the summit to look down on the sea and the town; but here Grace came out to them full of thanks and hopes, little knowing that to them the event was a very great one.  When at the glass doors of the garden entrance, Ermine trusted herself to the Colonel’s arm, and between him and her crutch crossed the short space to the morning room, where Rachel rose from her sofa, but wisely did not come forward till her guest was safely placed in a large easy chair.

Rachel then held out her hand to the Colonel, and quietly said, “Thank you,” in a subdued manner that really touched him, as he retreated quickly and left them together.  Then Rachel sat down on a footstool close to Ermine, and looked up to her.  “Oh, it is so good of you to come to me!  I would not have dared to think of it, but I just said I wished to get out for nothing but to go to you; and then he—­Captain Keith-would go and fetch you.”

“As the nearest approach to fetching the moon, I suppose,” said Ermine, brightly.  “It was very kind to me, for I was longing to see you, and I am glad to find you looking better than I expected.”

For in truth Rachel’s complexion had been little altered by her illness; and the subdued dejected expression was the chief change visible, except in the feebleness and tremulousness of all her movements.  “Yes, I am better,” she said.  “I ought to be, for he is so good to me.”

“Dear Rachel, I was so very glad to hear of this,” said Ermine, bending down to kiss her.

“Were you?  I thought no one could be that cared for him,” said Rachel.

“I cared more for him the week that you were ill than ever I had done before.”

“Grace tells me of that,” said Rachel, “and when he is here I believe it.  But, Miss Williams, please look full at me, and tell me whether everybody would not think—­I don’t say that I could do it—­but if every one would not think it a great escape for him if I gave him up.”

“No one that could really judge.”

“Because, listen,” said Rachel, quickly, “the regiment is going to Scotland, and he and the mother have taken it into their heads that I shall get well faster somewhere away from home.  And—­and they want to have the wedding as soon as I am better; and they are going to write about settlements and all that.  I have never said I would, and I don’t feel as if—­as if I ought to let him do it; and if ever the thing is to be stopped at all, this is the only time.”

“But why?  You do not wish—­”

“Don’t talk of what I wish,” said Rachel.  “Talk of what is good for him.”

Ermine was struck with the still resolute determination of judging for herself—­the self-sufficiency, almost redeemed by the unselfishness, and the face was most piteously in earnest.

“My dear, surely he can be trusted to judge.  He is no boy, in spite of his looks.  The Colonel always says that he is as much older than his age in character as he is younger in appearance.”